In true Kira fashion, I have started a project for two days, then neglected to blog on day three. But one of the major lessons of Adriene's journey is to practice observation without judgment, as we often place self-assigned negative labels on neutral behavior. As it turns out, missing one day of blogging doesn't murder people, nor does it mean the world will come crashing to a halt.
Adriene began day 3 by asking us to maintain a sense of gratitude for ourselves. This is a hard one for me—I have a tremendous sense of gratitude for those around me, for my life circumstances, for the opportunities I've been given, but I rarely feel gratitude for myself. Even in trying to feel gratitude for myself, I would accost myself for being so self-absorbed, then would feel guilty about not feeling gratitude for myself, thus failing at the task at hand.
But, as Tim Miller argues in How to Want What you Have, one of the secrets of happiness is gratitude: "Gratitude," he posits, "is the intention to count your blessings every day, every minute, while avoiding the belief that you need or deserve different circumstances." And while I've spent obsessive amounts of time bemoaning the fact that I wasn't born smarter, more competent, more interesting, or better looking, I could recognize that it takes tremendous fortitude to show up on the yoga mat in the midst of recognizing these faults...or, as I tell my students, "opportunities for growth."
Miller's other proposed components of achieving happiness are compassion and and attention. Adriene touches on both of these in the first 5 minutes of her video. Attention, "the intention to avoid unnecessary value judgments about your own experience—to live without reservation in the here and now," is present when Adriene reminds us that we should avoid placing judgment on how we feel. Rather, we can observe how we feel. Maybe we can even smile at our thoughts, acknowledging their presence while knowing that they don't own us.
Observation, as I've observed, can also be helpful in interactions with others. Someone may say something to you that feels off or critical. In these situations, we tend towards fight or flight responses, and I am a major "flyer" (I guess you could say I'm a frequent flyer). In response to any kind of criticism, constructive or otherwise, I often feel like I should just quit the day, crawl under my covers, and cry.
You can still acknowledge the critical undertones of people's words without it ruining your day. Observing those comments gives you the freedom to shrug and go "that's something so and so chose to say. But I can choose not to fight or fly. I can just be."
Compassion, according to Miller, is "the intention to see each human being as no better or worse than yourself." This message is in direct correlation to Adriene's reminders to feel gratitude, as well as to observe without judgment. No matter where we or others are in life, we can appreciate that we are trying. We can feel compassion for those who criticize or mock or demean, as it's probably coming from place of deep pain. We can try to feel compassion for mass murderers (although probably with less success).
Much like gratitude, compassion is a tricky one for me. Ever since noticing that I didn't quite "get" life, or seemed 100 steps behind everyone else, I have felt shame, embarrassment, and extreme self-hatred. But as difficult as this has been to recognize, despite my deficiencies and awkwardness, I do deserve a space in the world. I can have compassion for my struggles. The real failure, no matter where you are, is when you stop trying.
Having this wakeup call at age 25 has been a shocking beginning of a transformation. I've felt a lot of shame that I didn't "learn how to human" earlier, but almost as if she were reading my mind, Adriene reminded us that "transformation and change happens when we're ready for it. We can't make it happen." We may have a certain degree of agency in what we prioritize, what we learn, but we may not realize until that moment of transformation that we have been looking at the wrong things all along.
Day 4, feel, contained 1 simple yet profound message: "we are in charge of our own happiness."
No matter how painful it is to get there, to break through layers of ingrained behavior and thought patterns, even those few moments of joy are so worth it.
Namaste.
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